Realistic shot design

In this tutorial I will show you how I use photographs and Photoshop to create a design for the shot- the part of the story board. I use photos quite rare, but this is a good way to save time and create quite realistic shot design.

So let’s go.

This is a shot of the mountain that I’ve found in the internet. My idea is to create a shot painting in some fantasy elements. Let’s imagine that this is a shot of some fantasy game or movie.

I’ve decided to paint a fantasy castle – so I’m just searching for some architecture elements here. Try to match colors with overall gamma this time because I really like it to be white.

Basically I’m doing the whole thing with only 1 single brush: sometimes changing the edges from wet to normal.

Try not to zoom to close – only when it’s really needed- because there is a big risk to screw up with tone gamma and with everything I guess. This is quite a problem- so called digital pit – so just don’t zoom in a lot.

I’ve added a parallel line to draw the walls of the castle straight (cause it is not painter x).

Zoom only when you want to draw some tiny details like these statues and columns.

Note that as the color goes from white to background color the more it seems like it really goes further into the horizon: this is one of the main principals of value.

I guess this strong element should be on the foreground:

See now what I had in mind.
Checking the composition: zoom in – zoom out: flip horizontally and back.

Some details:

Some background elements too:

Now for the clouds – I’ve started train clouds with standard sponge brush and the smearing with wny ripped edge brush.

Then I’ve decided to paint in foreground character that is standing and looking on the castle:

I’m starting with a rough color sketch.

.. Adding some color.

And this is it. I hope you find out how to save some time making a story board or just one shot design.